Here you're actually helping make my point, I think. Isaiah Thomas is an exception to almost every rule, but even including him, what you've put up is a series of role players. Not good players, but adequate ones. As HC at Indiana, Knight had the pick of the litter, competing with Kentucky and UNC for the best players in the land. Why didn't he get them? Because he didn't want independent personalities, or because they didn't want him? He did land a bunch of prized recruits over the years, but outside of Thomas, how many of them really blossomed? Kent Benson was a tremendous professional disappointment, Damon Bailey went nowhere. Alan Henderson and Calbert Cheaney both became adequate pros. Not more. These are the sorts of limitations I'm getting at. If he got tremendously talented players, he didn't prepare them to be exceptional at basketball in a further career, by and large. If he got less talented players, he didn't get them to exceed themselves.

I could argue the opposite. He had Isiah Thomas as his one Hall of Famer. He also had a bunch of role players, and never really recruited the one and done guy. Knight himself has come out and said as much. In comparison, look at John Chaney, Jerry Tarkanian, Roy Williams, Bill Self, or Jim Boeheim. They all had one or two future NBA stars, but mostly ended up with amazing role players who floundered a bit in the pros. John Calipari puts stars in the NBA and doesn't yell, but his programs also suffer the consequences of his shady recruiting practices. I still see no correlation between yelling and future success.

Disclaimer: I am from Indiana, and Bob Knight is the patron saint of IU Basketball. And I am a huge homer...

well said Joe,also we are awaiting an official statue of Gene Keadys hair

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